Development and evaluation of electromechanical cables for deep sea buoy applications

Abstract

Electromechanical (E/M cables have been developed in order to satisfy the growing need for real time data telemetry from oceanographic moorings. Several E/M cable designs have been implemented with the cooperation of private industry in order to accommodate E/M cable requirements for different mooring experiments. Surface and subsurface E/M cable applications are discussed with reference to WHOI Projects (ESOM, STEM, RTEAM). Floating tether and their special designs (concave up, S-tether) are also illustrated together with an evaluation of their performance at sea (RTEAM, MOIST, TETHERMOOR, ABRUPT TOPOGRAPHY). Data from material tests performed by the OS&M Labratory are reported in seven separate tables.